"What do you want for Christmas? What? No. And not that either. Anything else? A new football perhaps?"

One thing I'll never forget about my economics professor at Arizona State, Dr. Stephen Happel, was his BRUTAL honesty about money and people, and how the two constantly conflict with one another. He once broke down why "spending a lot of time on finding a present" for someone, which we're traditionally taught to correlate with the "thought" behind the gift, or its "sentimental value", is really just the opposite... it actually indicates how little you know the person, for if you cared enough about them in the first place, you would know them well enough to find a gift for them, based on their true wants and needs, in a very short amount of time. In other words, how sentimental can a gift be when it took the giver a week to figure out what to get you?

Ha!

Think about that the next time someone hands you a half-ass Ebay look and says "man, I shopped for days before I found this for you!" Now you'll know they are simply abusing traditional folklore regarding a correlation between time spent looking and sentimental value to disguise the fact they had no fucking clue what to get you to begin with.

OUCH!

My favorite though is when family members ask "hey, what do you want for Christmas!?" I used to interpret that as "ok, I am going to make a list of 3 or 4 items that I really want and or need, and give that list to this person! I am bound to get at least 1!" EXCITING, RIGHT??!!

Shit...

I read Santa's shopping for a solar-paneled red nose for Rudolph so he can save money on the battery power our red-nosed buddy consumes in-flight by charging Rudy's schnoz all day on Christmas Eve via photon absorption...

After I submit my list, what happens is I usually get a call or email redefining the question; "hey, what do you want for Christmas that costs $29.99 or less, whereby a second gift is a function of the price of the first relative to my budget and sense of value for our relationship, whereby it is not to exceed .5X the first gift's price, subject to market forces beyond my control."

I wish people would just get to the fucking point. "Hey, I really don't want to spend more than $29.99 on you this Christmas. I have other people to buy for, and your true Christmas wants aren't as important to me as sending you something so I can say I did at church, during communion, and nurture my proverbial holiday checklist. So find something online, a second-hand Chicago Bears hat, or maybe an oil change, and send me a link. No, you can't have cash, because I have to make myself feel good by actually buying you this thing that's $29.99 or less, even though you can spend the money better aligned with your interests than I can. Thanks! Merry Christmas!"

This would make Dr. Happel proud! This market would be efficient, and I wouldn't even have to pretend I was disappointed with the $0.99 Target card didn't dump out any loot.